This song’s title was inspired by the games of mahjongg that Roger Waters and Nick Mason would play with their wives during the recording of their 1971 sixth album called “Meddle.” We’re all familiar with the albums that followed this one — the brilliant “Dark Side,” “Wish” and “Animals”…and the colossal turd that is “The Wall.” Everything else after “The Wall” is completely and utterly expendable and disposable. Everything before “Meddle” was a mixed bag with the “Sid” period giving us some classic singles and interesting psychedelia on uneven records like “Piper At The Gates Of Dawn” and “A Saucerful Of Secrets,” a couple of soundtracks that are worth a cursory listen but probably worked better within the context of their films, a couple of compilations like the brilliant “Relics,” and the patchy “A Nice Pair” and “Ummagumma,” and then there’s “Meddle’s” predecessor “Atom Heart Mother,” which has its moments but ultimately was a warm-up for what was to follow. “Meddle” is a record that rightly gets overshadowed by the records that followed it even though it includes a clutch of classics like the side-long “Echoes,” “One Of These Days,” “Fearless” and this mellow masterwork featuring the vocals of David Gilmour.
